First off, I want to make a call for anyone else who is already in, or is interested in the publishing world.
I would love to get into the field and I want to network with like-minded people to form valuable connections/community, and I figured the best way to do that would be to just sound a horn over here.
(I apologize if there is already a niche formed for this somewhere else on HW....)

So...if anyone is in the publishing field and/or wants to get into it, I have a couple questions.

Do you know of any possible job opportunities for someone young and inexperienced who wants to get their foot in the door of the publishing world (on the editorial side of things)? I'm basically just throwing that out there because I'm blindly hopeful that something lucky will turn up. I figured I may as well ask, just to be sure...

More importantly, do you know what would be the best way (or ways) for said person(s) to put their proverbial foot in the proverbial door? Educational paths, internships, etc....what's most likely to get you places?
What does it take to land a job in the field?

I've done some snooping around on the net, but basically I'm looking for people who know more than me about this from real-life experience (or have really done their research), as well as to hopefully make some networking opportunities!

So if you have any helpful tips, please, please drop a line on this topic.

Areth,

Karthmin

Alas, I'm self-published, so I can't offer any tips for you.

I think the majority of us HWers are self-published. Oh well, I'll have to look other places.

Are you specifically looking for people who want to work behind the scenes in the publishing industry, rather than novelists or other writers who are traditionally published? I have some interest in working behind the scenes in the publishing industry, but I haven't yet decided how far to pursue it.

You probably already know about the following options for starting out, but I'll go over what comes to mind. One way to gain experience with editing is to do freelance editing through a service like eLance. Also, some magazines, such as Splickety, have volunteers who do work for free in order to gain high quality experience.

Some less conventional options would be to start a magazine or put out an anthology. It would be challenging to do either at a truly professional level without having much prior experience, but a determined individual could pull it off.

An English degree or other writing-related degree could also be helpful.